Numeracy

Numeracy is one of the school’s priorities. Part of the priority is to provide students with five hours of mathematics instruction a week, providing classes have no other commitments that may prevent this from occurring.

Over the last couple of years the school has worked on restructuring the way mathematics is planned and taught. Every year level has divided their year into two or three week blocks. In each block there is a major and minor focus comprising of three hours instruction a week for the major and two hours for the minor. This means all areas being covered are being taught for an extended period. This is done to help establish and consolidate student understanding.

The teachers that are in each year level meet weekly to plan the major and minor focuses. This is to ensure consistency across the year level.

Each lesson has an agreed structure or approach. At the beginning students are told explicitly what they are going to learn.

There is a five-minute warm up we call Number Fluency. This is to help engage and focus the students for the up coming lesson and assist their understanding of numbers. The Number Fluency has many applications. It may include activities such as counting tasks or games, open-ended questions with more than one answer, activities that require students to sequence numbers in order.

The formal learning may consist of the teacher having a specific teaching point or focus for students to learn.

Students are then given learning tasks. The learning tasks given aim to reinforce and challenge their thinking and understanding. The tasks are designed to cater for the range of student needs in the class.

At the conclusion of a session the teacher may assemble all the students and refer back to the aim of the lesson. This is done to find out or gauge how students managed the tasks and expanded their understandings.

Assessment is an important part of any teaching and learning. The school has a Numeracy Assessment Schedule for every year level with a range of tasks to assess student progress.

Assessment not only helps inform the teachers of student understandings, that they can then pass on to parents and teachers, it also helps to improve the programs being planned.